Nothing screams more than man and woman of the people than having an exclusively privately educated Shadow Cabinet but as David Cameron (and to a lesser extent Boris Johnson) proved being a posho is nor bar to winning general elections. I think Wes Streeting has proved where Reform are weak and given the religious fervour Brits have for the NHS this appears to be a mistake by Reform rather than having a lot of poshos from Cambridge in their ‘Shadow’…
Ladbrokes have a market on who will finish last in next week’s by-election and I’vev had a couple of bets on the Lib Dems & Rejoin the EU. My logic is simple, this doesn’t feel like fertile territory for a pure Rejoin party, as for the Lib Dems I am fully expecting Lib Dem voters to vote tactically en masse for the Greens to stop Reform winning, I think these bets feel value but others may disagree. TSE Site notice…
There is no polling and political expert I respect more than Professor Sir John Curtice, as a wise man once observed nobody became rich by betting against Sir John. I am happy that he shares my view that the u-turn on holding the postponed local elections represents a much bigger risk for the Tories than Labour and that means more problems for Kemi Badenoch which could see a leadership challenge. There’s also a clip of Professor Curtice talking about this….
TSE Site notice – I am currently on holiday until the 1st of March
Reform’s legal challenge has forced the government to u-turn and ensure the previously delayed council elections do take place in May. Not only is the u-turn bad for Starmer but the inevitable shellacking Labour experiences in May will put Starmer’s leadership at risk but it also presents problems for Kemi Badenoch as I expected May’s elections will be rather grim for the Tories. In 2022 their national equivalent share of the vote was 30% and currently in 2026 they generally…
Right now Labour are an implied 34% chance of winning most seats at the next general election versus Reform who are a 33.8% chance. As we can see in th second chart this is the first time Labour have been the favourites in this market since June 2025. TSE Site notice – I am currently on holiday until the 1st of March
Unless punters think Sir Keir Starmer’s remaining leader is a major positive for Labour I am not sure why the most seats markets have moved quite so much. The movement started before the launch of Rupert Lowe’s new party, so this poll with a methodology that isn’t standard and is the past has been shown to be flawed shouldn’t move the market, after their Gorton & Denton ‘poll’ then I am surprised they would publish a non standard poll so…
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